Chapter 386: Cut Hair to Forge Sword

After stepping into the two-realm partition formation, as the Spirit Web connection broke, Zhang Yu could not only see no messages in the competition group and could no longer communicate with his teammates, but the world before his eyes also changed drastically.

He could not see the various markers his teammates had annotated on the Eye-Socket Vision.

He could not see the various messages that had been constantly jumping.

Even the illumination of the entire competition arena dimmed, and the warnings, competition rules, and advertisements that had been floating in the air all vanished.

Turning to look outside the barrier, he found that the neon flickering and multicolored lights around the arena had all disappeared without a trace.

With the communication with the Spirit World severed, all that remained before his eyes were gray, dreary buildings, like a primitive world of ignorance, no longer showing any of the vibrant vitality from the Spirit World, making the real world appear so pale and dull.

Zhang Yu realized that he had unconsciously grown accustomed to a world in constant communication with the Spirit World; without the support of the Spirit World, everything felt awkward and difficult.

The next moment, as Tian Yang slapped Zhang Yu's body, Zhang Yu felt a sharp sword intent descend from the sky, infusing into his body, cutting through layers of obstacles, helping him reconnect with the Spirit World, making the world before his eyes clear and colorful again.

At the same time, Shi Huaiyu's message reappeared on everyone's Eye-Socket.

Shi Huaiyu: Where are you all?

Tian Yang: Just used the Sky-Patrolling Flying Sword to break the two-realm partition formation

Tian Yang: Don't send anything that uses too much data

Tian Yang: Otherwise, if we go over the limit and I end up in a complete spirit-blocked state, that would be troublesome

As everyone communicated, Zhang Yu, Xiao Qingxuan, and Tian Yang had already quickly advanced deep into the defensive fortifications built by Su Yanyang.

As they went deeper, they could feel the interior of the insect-nest-like building becoming more winding and complex.

At the same time, the spiritual energy gradually grew thinner, causing their mana recovery rate to keep declining.

Shi Huaiyu reminded: As Su Yanyang's formation completion degree keeps rising and his spirit vein occupancy gets higher, the spiritual energy content in the air will gradually decrease

Shi Huaiyu: The deeper you go, the worse it gets, so in the next phase, you need to conserve your mana

Just then, Zhang Yu stopped walking and frowned, saying, "Did we go in circles?"

He compared the footage his Time-Displacement Residual Demon Eye had just recorded along the way, and the path before him definitely looked like it had been traversed before.

But Xiao Qingxuan beside him shook his head: "I compared the route we just took, and we shouldn't have been here before."

Shi Huaiyu: Zhang Yu, are you mistaken?

Zhang Yu was taken aback: "Was I wrong?"

He sent the comparison image to the group, and Tian Yang exclaimed, "Don't send such high-definition pictures!"

Xiao Qingxuan looked at the image and said, "Maybe the Eye-Socket is malfunctioning? This place you photographed, we haven't been there."

Zhang Yu furrowed his brows, a deep sense of doubt rising in his heart.

In the Spirit World space.

With the three-hour break just now, the teachers naturally wouldn't leave their split thoughts waiting idly.

Now that the new round of competition had officially started, many teachers from the Civil Engineering department had also arrived one after another.

Though the Magnetic Pole True Lord was late and became the last to arrive, no one on site dared to say anything obviously.

Seeing that the Magnetic Pole True Lord had finally come, Director Gao let out a slight sigh of relief; he was really afraid that the other party would be too lazy to watch the competition and simply not show up.

Director Gao privately chatted: Why so long? What were you doing?

Magnetic Pole True Lord: That new student of mine made some achievements, and I got curious and looked into it a bit more.

Director Gao: Oh? You mean the one who came through the back door?

Magnetic Pole True Lord: Yes, and now it seems that those who come through the back door do have their unique qualities.

Director Gao: That's natural. It's different from before. In the past, only those without ability had to use connections; now, being able to use connections shows you have ability.

Director Gao: What's that student's name?

The Magnetic Pole True Lord did not answer Director Gao, but instead looked at the five ongoing competitions and suddenly said, "Oh? At our Supreme Law University, someone is using the Sky-Patrolling Flying Sword?"

At this moment, not many teachers were watching the competition between Zhang Yu and Su Yanyang.

After all, in the eyes of most teachers, the gap in strength between the two sides was too large, and the match was really not worth watching—the process was bound to be Su Yanyang crushing his opponent with overwhelming force.

But the moment Magnetic Pole True Lord spoke up, many teachers immediately focused their attention on the scene.

When they saw Zhang Yu take out the Green Silk Flying Sword, intending to use Heaven Sword University’s Sky Patrol Flying Sword to break through the Two Realms Separation Array, Lang Yougong said with slight surprise, “Zhang Yu can use the Sky Patrol Flying Sword? When did he apply to Heaven Sword University for that?”

One teacher commented, “This is hardly a common commercial method. This flying sword forged from green silk has direct authority to connect to the Sky Patrol Flying Sword. It looks like a gift from someone of no low status at Heaven Sword University.”

Director Lin’s expression remained unchanged, his gaze seemingly as calm as an ancient well, but within his heart thoughts surged in myriad directions.

In particular, he recalled the meeting not long ago between Wen Wuyai, the Nascent Soul disciple of Heaven Sword University, and Zhang Yu.

Director Lin: “That old codger Gao Chongguang really did make contact with that Nascent Soul from Heaven Sword. Could they have reached some kind of agreement regarding the use of the Sky Patrol Flying Sword?”

Magnetic Pole True Lord couldn’t help but glance twice more at Director Gao and privately asked, “Have you cooperated with Heaven Sword University on the Sky Patrol Flying Sword?”

The Spirit Realm… is extremely important to every cultivator.

Once separated from the Spirit Realm, not only does daily life and cultivation become inconvenient, but even the efficiency of work and study is greatly reduced.

And how to ensure a stable connection to the Spirit Realm—especially maintaining that connection outside the university city—becomes very important.

The pair of sun and moon in the sky floated into Magnetic Pole True Lord’s mind, and he thought to himself, “Our Ten Thousand Methods University’s Sun and Moon that Illuminate the World are good enough, but the fees are too expensive.”

“If we could introduce the Sky Patrol Flying Sword as competition, who knows how much funding we could save each year.”

Magnetic Pole True Lord understood very well that neither the Artifact Refining Department nor the Civil Engineering Department could compare to individual students in terms of their scale of Spirit Realm usage.

The monthly expense on the Spirit Realm was a considerable outlay for any department.

“That old Gao really did find himself a handle.”

“From the perspective of reducing costs and increasing efficiency with the Sky Patrol Flying Sword, it’s far more convenient to use as an entry point for Heaven Sword University than any debate over war or peace.”

Director Gao, looking at the message from Magnetic Pole True Lord, did not reply; he merely kept an inscrutable expression on his face.

Director Gao recalled the friendship between Wen Wuyai and Zhang Yu.

“That flying sword forged from green silk… could it be that Wen Wuyai cut off his hair to forge a sword and gave it to Zhang Yu?”

“Has their friendship already reached such a level?”

Director Gao was extremely surprised—could such things still happen among the young people of Kunxu nowadays?

A Nascent Soul disciple, meeting a student from the First Layer for the first time and feeling like old friends, then cutting off his hair as a gift and even giving him a channel to connect to the Sky Patrol Flying Sword…

Director Gao couldn’t help but even wonder if Zhang Yu had become a spy for Ten Thousand Methods and sold some intelligence to the other side.

But he quickly shook that absurd thought out of his mind and said to himself, “I’ll have to ask him properly next time.”

“This disciple of mine really keeps surprising me more and more.”

Meanwhile, the match continued.

Watching the changes after Zhang Yu delved deep into the defensive works, Wei Huai, a teacher from the Peace Faction, said, “He must have fallen into the Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Confusion Array.”

A teacher beside him said, “It is indeed the Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Confusion Array. They must have been afflicted when they shared the Spirit Realm connection of the Sky Patrol Flying Sword.”

“Now, everything they see through their eye implants is a mix of truth and falsehood, reality and illusion, and the messages they receive are also generated by the array spirit. Every move they make is essentially under Su Yanyang’s nose.”

Another teacher from the Neutral Faction praised, “Su Yanyang’s team set up this Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Confusion Array quite well. It shows they have a solid grasp of the intelligent architecture courses.”

Tu Lishan knew that the intelligent architecture courses for senior students combined architecture with arrays, adding array spirits and building spirits to structures, making buildings intelligent, digitized, and informationalized…

Wei Huai said, “Su Yanyang’s cost control is also very good—using just three soul cultivators to successfully operate the Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Confusion Array and achieve excellent results.”

…

Inside the arena.

Fu Ji suddenly said, “Zhang Yu, you must have been hit—someone is blinding your vision and even distorting the information sent and received by your eye implants.”

Zhang Yu’s heart stirred: “Someone tampered with my eye implants?”

In order to allow his naked eyes to continuously adapt to his strengthened body, Zhang Yu had long been wearing an eye implant on each eye alternately.

Although this prevented the Time-Scarred Demonic Eye from reaching its optimal performance, it also allowed him to observe with his naked eyes at this moment.

However, Zhang Yu closed his left eye one moment and his right eye the next, but he did not see anything unusual before him.

Fuji said calmly, "Don't bother testing. Since they can target your eye prosthetic, they can naturally target your naked-eye vision as well."

"This kind of perception-obscuring formation is always an improved version of ancient formations."

Fuji spoke with ease: "Ancient formations were originally designed to obscure the physical senses. It was only after eye prosthetics appeared, when they were found to be ineffective against them, that improvements were made so they could interfere with both the physical body and the prosthetic at the same time."

"Do you know why what you just saw conflicted with what Xiao Qingxuan, Tian Yang, and the others saw? Because you were using the Time-Scarred Demonic Eye, whose performance is far superior to their eye prosthetics, so you managed to hold out a little longer."

"If you want to test it, try sending a message. The messages you send and receive have probably been distorted by now."

Zhang Yu thought for a moment and sent a message to the competition group chat.

Zhang Yu: @Yu Xinghan, do you still remember what Senior Sister Hongxiao's latest work was?

Yu Xinghan: "The Secret Flower Bud in Bloom," released last month.

Zhang Yu muttered to himself: "Tch, in the competition group chat... how could Yu Xinghan say that so openly?"

"After all, appreciating these works with a purely artistic, non-dual-cultivation perspective has always been a persecuted and discriminated niche in Kunxu."

"The real Yu Xinghan would have pretended not to see my message, or acted like he didn't know what I was talking about."

"Looks like Fuji was right — the messages I'm sending and receiving now are all fake too."

With that thought, Zhang Yu grabbed Xiao Qingxuan beside him and said bluntly, "Our vision has been obscured, and our sent and received messages have been distorted..."